Tag: cats

After going through what seemed like a half ton of newspapers, tape and boxes, I was really ready for moving day. The time I spent packing – since I took so long doing it – seemed to be a good amount of time for me to get used to the idea of leaving my house. Besides, being decorated in Early American Cardboard Box as it was, the house no longer felt like my little treasure. I was tired and stressed, and ready to move on to my temporary home at my friend’s house and just relax for awhile. My dear friend Ken drove from Torrington – a two hour trip – to help out where he could and keep me relatively unruffled. Ken and I met in rehab in 2010 – he learning how to walk, talk and feed himself again after his stroke and me learning how to balance and walk again after breaking my neck. Injuries like that leave you forever damaged a bit, but the two of us together manage to have one completely functioning brain that succeeds in calming one another. Yes, I may have been ready for moving day, but it was still bound to be emotionally charged when reality hit and the furniture actually started being marched out of the door.

The moving crew, from Barnes Moving and Storage in Mystic, was great. They actually threw me off balance a bit by not only being on time, but being a little early. I have learned to expect people being late, so I wasn’t quite ready for them, but no problem. They were consummate professionals who actually ignored my usual chattiness as politely as possible and started industriously itemizing and inventorying my household immediately. Recalling those online horror stories about household items ending up miles away from their intended locations, I took the hint and decided that it was perhaps in my best interest to stop yacking for awhile and let these people do their job. Far be it from me to be the cause of distraction and major boo-boos.

Not knowing what to do with my animals in the commotion and fearing I could lose them, I placed my cat in her carrier, rolled down the windows of my car and put the 2 dogs and cat into the car. The dogs love that. They don’t care if the car budges one inch as long as they can sit in it with the windows open. The cat, however, has a different opinion of being taken out of her Royal Roost (otherwise known as my bed) and placed in her paltry and unworthy carrier. She immediately proceeded to howl as loudly as possible and inform the neighborhood that she was NOT amused. With my head tucked low so as to hide my embarrassment, I returned to the house hoping that no one would think I was abusing my cat. By now, she was REALLY annoyed and the usual MWOW! MWOW! had evolved into her Princess-Ticked-Off MMMMOOOOOOWWWW!!! demand for immediate release back into the Royal Accommodations. For those of you who live under the silly notion that cats are unfeeling, aloof creatures, all I can say is that you have yet to meet my Diana, Princess of All She Surveys – and that includes me and my dogs.

Having thus far found myself in the way of the moving crew and rattled by the cat’s alarms, I retreated into the living room with Ken and my computer. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had decided to sell more furniture and there I was at Closing Day Minus 2 with items that needed to get out as quickly as possible. So I logged onto Facebook and started slashing prices on my sale postings there. “Moving Sale! Everything Must Go Today! Prices Reduced!” started attracting the sharks in the water and my private messages were pinging like a pinball machine. At this point, the moving crew and Ken were starting to have a few questions, Diana was MMMOOOOOWWWing, the cell phone was ringing and bargain hunting Facebook customers were presenting themselves at the door. Suddenly it seemed like my house had become air traffic control and I was one trafficker about to be fired. Thank God Ken was there to help handle the ringing doorbell and strangers in my house. At lunch time, I decided that Ken, the movers and I needed to be fed and made a run to the pizza house for grinders. The rest of the country may feed their movers pizza, but here in Connecticut, we feed them grinders. And no, those aren’t subs. They are grinders. Don’t even try to compare subs to grinders. To those of us from Connecticut, that is blasphemy! Anyway, it felt so good to get out of there for 20 minutes! Besides, it seems that a lot of people don’t think to feed their movers (seriously people??), so mine thought I was the best thing since sliced bread (or so they said….).

Despite the chaos and all the people going in and out of the house, we had all gotten along well. Diana had fallen asleep and quieted down, the Facebook crowd had stopped, the majority of my belongings were in the moving truck and the day was finally winding down to a close. Things had actually gone fairly smoothly. And then came the used furniture store guy. All was about to change. I pointed he and his helper in the direction of what he had come for and walked into my living room under the assumption that a guy with a used furniture store would know how to move furniture. All of a sudden, I heard a loud thump and then….S..C..R..I..T..C..H!!! I immediately jumped up and ran over to where he was starting to drag a heavy piece across the floor. In my usual calm-under-pressure demeanor I screamed “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING???? PICK IT UP!!!!!” while Ken started to pace with wild eyed apprehension of what I might do next. The guy started flubbering excuses, then picked it up until he got it outside, where he put it down again and started breathing as if he were about to have a heart attack. Being the caring person that I am, I glared at him, released a loud “ARGH!!!!!” and retreated to another room leaving Ken to collect my money. A minute later, poor Ken sheepishly came up to me and delivered the news that the guy was asking for his change. At this point, my head started spinning like Linda Blair’s in the Exorcist while I’m telling poor Ken “He wants his WHAT???? You tell that guy to take his change and stick it…..” well….I’m sure you know where I told him he could place his change. Apparently the guy must have been standing right outside the door when I made this pronouncement. When I made it to the door a few seconds later waving his change in my hand and uttering more words of endearment, the guy, his helper and his truck were gone.

Meanwhile, the horrified Barnes movers, who had originally thought I was the kindest person of the week, had served as witnesses to my temporary insanity. I looked at the young lady in charge and said “All day! All day you guys have been in and out and in and out and in and out and not one! Not ONE paint chip! Not ONE floor scratch!”. She looked at me sympathetically and remarked something to the effect of “yeah that stinks….”, but I knew she just wanted to get OUT and away from the crazy lady as soon as she could. Sigh… I couldn’t blame her. They made their escape and poor Ken listened to me until Linda Blair slowly shrank away and left only me muttering to myself. Fortunately, I was able to do floor damage repair that evening and relax. My house was empty and in two days, it would be cleaned and then sold……or so I thought……